I was gonna post this to Bahiya's practice log, but then I thought maybe I shouldn't squat his log like that.

Here's a new twist to my erm... practice.

1. Everything which is happening is already happening here, and the only thing which is wrong is the assumption that there is something else that is happening, "out there", and that needs to be included. So by engaging in the practice of "including everything", I automatically fail, because I must first accept the premise that there is something else, which presumably is not being included.
2. Or... everything is utterly tansient, and the only thing which is wrong is the assumption that there is somewhere something fixed. If I focus on one of the sensation which appears to be fixed, trying to see that it is not, I am assuming that my various observations are observing the same sensation, which of couse they are not.
3. Or, likewise, if I choose some sensation which for some reason appears to be the self, and try to see it as not self, I am assuming I have some control over how I see things. But everything that is happening is happening on its own. 
4. Or to "try to let go" is an oxymoron.
5. Or, it has come to the point that I can see to a very large degree that everything which is happening is already totally fine, except there is this compulsive urge to fix something. Nothing other than this urge needs to be fixed, one cannot fix what is not broken, and to try to fix the urge to fix something is to immediately fail the attempt. Hence nothing can be fixed, and practice is impossible, and there is nothing to do... 

On many levels I see that it's a rope, and yet there's still a fleeting sense that there's a snake in there somewhere. But this systematic arriving at a contradiction, as if past a certain point practice itself becomes impossible, this is new and makes me confused. As if the path has turned on itself, and I am left holding a weird koan.

What might happen if you drop all the conjecturing and let things play out? What does conceptualizing the contradictions and logic knots do to help you "figure things out?"

This is really very, very, very, very simple.

You can't "logic" it.

All attempts to leverage attention are at this point suspect. So one arrives at no practice. I had to have this realization repeatedly for about a year until I really arrived at no practice. Not because I didn't understand it the first time - it just takes the body awhile to grok it. And no practice still had a someone doing it for quite awhile before something that isn't practicing actually showed up. And that takes time to get used to and explore and understand what remains and so on. 

As far as I can say 

4th path goes really deep

Like... Really really really deep 

It gets down to the level of core assumptions. That's ignorance. For example I was working with the incorrect assumption that the future was in some fashion predictable. That fell away and brought with it a profound opening. Now I notice an extremely subtle assertion that only occasionally arises that things are somehow happening to someone. I'm starting to see through this but it still occurs. 

All this continues into and far beyond what we may originally consider non dual experience. The "non dual" experience refines itself repeatedly, over and over again throughout 4th path until it becomes something that actually resemble everything one might want from awakening. And that still isn't it. 

Over and over we think "ahh this is it" now I've really got it but generally it's just a refined mind state which with practice will allow us to explore more subtle grasping, more subtle fettering, more subtle selfing. 

The last five fetters each and together are sort of their own fractal. They unwind and interrelate and open up, each revealing subtle layers of attentional activity. How the identity complex is a result of the body minds chronic leveraging of attention as a tool. 

Absolutely nothing can be known for certain about any arising phenomena. It takes a while to grok that and for the implications of this realization to reach boiling point. 

I'm still cooking. Though I have largely got what I came for. All I really wanted was a nervous system that was mostly always relaxed throughout any conceivable experience or situation. I'm there now. And I do think some would consider what I have to be "it" but I have very high standards and largely having already got what I came for I figure I best see this all the way through. 

Experience is panoramic. My core trauma is seemingly resolved. All Nana's and states and stages are just arising phenomena. Whether things seem really enlightened or really regular and normal is kind of unimportant as the relaxed, at ease nervous system prevails throughout. 
Yet there are certain contractions to the panoramic aperture which occur that for me, I reckon, still need to be let go of. There are assumptions about reality, sometimes things still seem to be happening too someone, that should be uprooted. 

But a lot of that is habit. 

And 4th path I think is about habit. 
It's about addiction.

Addiction to attentional complexes which give rise to a sense of self. 
Self brain and tool brain are interrelated. Go figure.
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The thing about addiction is it takes time to burn through and progress is not always linear. 

(Maybe what we're looking for can't actually be found and as we come to terms with that the seeking activity can begin to relax)

(See Daniels post compilation for a description of what 4th path means to him. High standards !!)

Good stuff Bruno, yeah and I think what you'll find is the contradiction seems to arrive earlier and earlier in the discovering process -- the path turns on itself in tighter and tighter loops. In a funny way the insights get smaller and more nuanced... which means they become more fundmental and broadly applicable.

And yeah, "what is practice?" (or my personal version was "what even is meditation?") definitely is a koan and therefore a practice in itself.


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Water under the bridge now ...

Bruno, I'm curious to understansd better what you describe, so I guess I may ask a few questions.

How (if somehow) your approach differs from, let's say something like: "meeting all of the inner and outer impressions as they come, whether they appear to be complete, incomplete or something else"?

And what would failing, which you mention, mean (to you) actually?

How does one sense the urge (to fix)?

Thanks - and best wishes!

Spiritual ideals are nice and can be helpful, but they can also create hip hop video size golden chains, so just to throw in some arguments for manifesting leveraging of attention/practice of practice:

Daniel Ingram got 4th path on a retreat, doing hardcore 3c's and 6 sense doors. Very much practicing. Wystan Bryant Scott got 4th path on a ten month Zen retreat working MU all day, every day. Very much practicing. Roger Thisdell got in a jhana retreat. Very much practicing.
If I remember correctly, Shargrol got it on a metta retreat. 

Leveraging of attention arises, just as going to the bathroom does. The absolute and the relative co-incide. Contraction is already non-dual.
And YET... there is something working on something... relaxing... with practice, for some. For many, actually. Because there is practice but no one who is practicing, to paraphrase the Path of Purification. Dogen's practice enlightenment. You gotta practice, but practice is already it.
So why would leveraging of attention be a problem, ever? How could it be, ever? There is a path but there is no goer. 

Shinzen quotes his teacher as repeating to him countless times that you gotta be able to manifest no-self and also be able to manifest self. 

It doesn't have to be, but, in my experience, noticing my addiction to the leveraging of attention revealed that it was and is still the sole reason for the occurence of dukkha. Whether or not I practice, don't practice, practice jhana, practice koans, practice mantras, practice emptiness, practice 3c's, practice enlightenment. There it is, and clearly it's a problem or better it's the source code of problems themselves. Whenever grasping at attention occurs, whether conscious or unconscious, directed or habitual, there is dukkha. 

It is not that a healthy body mind can't operate with different attentional modes it's that the leveraging of attentional modes to secure a future outcome (including enlightenment) leads to dukkha---is itself the arising of dukkha. 

Ultimately just practice, obviously, do whatever can be done at whatever stage you're at. But what's ultimately revealed by practice is this leveraging of mind to attain future. That's, in large part, what dependent origination is pointing us at. 

The weekly fractalling insight that has persisted for me for years as this unfolds is that practice is dukkha. Whatever "level" of practice your at is itself often quite instructive about the dukkha you need to explore. 

If the identity is the result of an attentional complex (what does the DMN do? How does it relate to tool use)

Practice is basically always revealing the fine detail of what part of that complex you're examining. Practice often is the complex being examined. 

 

Well, Bahiya, and that is where we speak very different languages and have very different paths. Wich also means that we will never really agree on some of these finer points, and we don't have to, at all, it just needs to work for the path over there and over here. To me, you just emphasized what is a potential shadow side, a golden chain - wich, to you, on your path, it doesn't have to be, but might just as well be for me or for the next guy, or at least taste like it. 
So I'm not opting for the one right perspective, I just wanted to add perspectives for balance. 
Yes, identification is a source of the dhukkha that is inherent in dualistic perception. To say that it is the sole reason for dhukkha, however, for me misses the fundamental point that every positive manifestion displays the three characteristics and hence also is dhukkha, so there is no getting away from dhukkha, ever. The nature of the bodymind system is to be reactive. Sensations, regardless of those of a regulated system or of a highly reactive system, diplay the three characteristics. Hence, wanting to get away from dhukkha is the weird paradox in that it is both the path and impossible  - and can trap you in wanting to get away from dhukkha, wanting the pristine, the panoramic, the uncontracted over the contracted and reactive. And the way you like your words to taste to me always tastes of that kind of shadow side, but that just might be because we have two very different palates regarding such seasonings - ultimately it is about what works on a given path. Some people just stare at a wall for a few years and never bother with any of this and it also does the trick. Ulitmately, if there wasn't dissatisfaction, would any of us bother? Restlessness and worry. Fetters and propulsion. 

 
The issue of leveraging of attention is often a big deal in the lead up to so-called stream entry and so-called 4th path. It's not attention itself that is a problem, it's the attitude of "leveraging". Obviously, attention "is" but who or what is "leveraging" it? How do we know what we should be trying to "leverage"?

In the lead up to SE, it becomes clear that trying to actively look for and find cessation is impossible... and so the meditator needs to get used to letting attention go where it will without manipulation. To "just follow along" with the attention. It's possible to see the naturally occuring narrowness of attention and the naturally occuring wideness of awareness... which then begs a question: if both attention and awareness happen on their own, what am I?, what is the self? 

In the lead up to 3rd, it becomes clear that basically every spiritual interpretation/overlay on reality is "extra" so there is some very radical dropping of idealism and pessisism and self-development ideas... so if I'm not attention or awareness or my ideals, what am I? what is the self? After 3rd, levels of acceptance of reality as it is are very remarkably different than before --- you simply can't argue that much with reality anymore.

But life goes on. In the lead up to 4th, it becomes even more simple and elemental and more oddly personal. Who or what is in control of anything that I do? What is actually under my decision? What should I be doing? How can I even know ahead of time where I should put my efforts?

And after 4th, life still goes on...


It's important to trust (at every stage of the process) that there is an inherent wisdom/intelligence of the heart/mind that makes us look where we need to look...  and it's important to be humble because awakening isn't a "gaining something" process. More and more throughout the process, we lose a sense of separate and protected self (which can feel like losing the most precious thing we have).  

In fact, a very good inquiry (at every stage of the process) is to take a very close look at what we're hoping to gain from our practice and ponder why we think we need that. Usually that points to the greed, aversion, or indifference that we're overlooking and need to see clearly. And then sit with the feelings/emotional experience of "what if I NEVER get that? what will I be forced to experience without getting that?"

"What if I never get 4th path -- what would I have to experience in my life because I never got that?"

The answer to the question is what we're trying to AVOID through our seeking and spiritual practice. No big deal, no need to self-shame, this is just part of the process of seeking and spiritual development. But you also can't ignore the fact that we using seeking and spirtual practice as a very clever way to avoid the grittyness of our lives. 

We have a unconscious fear, we project an idea state/situation where that fear couldn't arise, we seek that idea state, we encounter enough frustrations that it makes us question the ideal... and then we see that we need face the original fear the drove the fantasy and the seeking. (And usually that fear is based on a misunderstanding and isn't so bad afterall ) This is how humans develop, from childhood to sainthood. 


When we finally can't avoid the grit in our lives through spiritual practice/bypassing, we have a whole new appreciation for the grit in every beings lives. Real compassion is possible and real responsibility is possible. Awakening is basically not being able to run away from compassion and responsibility anymore. Paradoxically, we have no freedom to ignore life anymore, but because we don't resist the truth of it we have a kind of "creative freedom" in initimately participating/engaging with it --- even though we have no idea what we really are or what is under our control or what we should be doing.

There is a kind of acceptance that everything is uncertain and we're making it all up as we go. Maybe less abstract suffering... but life is still as gritty as it always was, and maybe we're even more sensitive it that ever before. Suffering less, noticing it more -- as Bill Hamilton quipped.


Or not, who knows?







 

Pixel:

​​​​​​​If every conditioned phenomenon is already stamped with dukkha (as impermanence & not-self imply), what exactly does the Third Noble Truth—cessation—refer to?

My humble opinion, based on personal experience and many conversations with other people in similar circumstances, is that the conception that a person can heavily practice thus causing their way to the fourth path, is misleading. It didn't happen that way for me, and if you really quiz the folks listed above, they will admit that it didn't actually happen that way for them, either. It's as unlike any of the other three path moments as it can be. It just occurs, like a whisper in the wind. You can be doing anything at all: practicing hard, singing in the shower, playing cards, watching television, or in my case, on a business trip plane ride.

It's a figure-ground change of perspective that reveals a previously hidden part of how we conceive of our experiences. It is more like "solving" a koan than it is like experiencing cessation, or being in jhana, or noting, or... whatever you might do to try to force your way through to this realization.

Side note to my last comment:

It's ironic to me that folks want to preserve the notion that we can brute force practice our way to the 4th path. I think one reason for this might be that this story actually preserves the idea that we're in control of the process of awakening. Well, um, guess what? We're not. As shargrol so eloquently put it upthread:

  Bahiya, I'm not gonna go into all of that again here. That point has been endlessly discussed, and Daniel Ingram has contributed a lot to that. If you think the Pali Canon talks about a land without suffering, then why did the Buddha try to escape his suffering from whatever gastric something he had before he died by going into Jhana, why did Chana kill himself to escape chronic pain, etc... That's the same corporation that spouts the four noble truths. Go figure. But, as Ingram also said in his most recent interview, that is also the part of Theravada that most people don't like at all, since they would rather like to get away from suffering for good. Shadow sides, golden chains...

Chris, I'm not coming down hard on one or the other side of practice of practice or practice of no practice, i'm coming down hard on BOTH. Sort of. I'm saying there are many ways it happens, and people actually, as a final push, returning to "practice of practice" is not that uncommon. As such, I think it is misleading to ONLY come down on the side of "it doesn't happen because of heavy practice, as practice reinforces agency" or "the seeking hides the sought" or some variation of the arguments ususally put forth on that side.

I could make the case that all path moments, even stream entry, happen at a phase in practice that doesn't really seem like practice anymore, as in high EQ the field takes itself as object,  in one crucial moment, and all of the field just happens, flips, poof. Wich often occurs when, well, people relax efforting. But... is that a feature or a bug? Part of the ususal developmental arc or straying from it? I fundamentally disagree with the conceptual stance you often voiced, that you basically knew vipassana in and out and that didn't bring you the final flip. I'm saying that that depends very much on a defintion of "vipassana" that does not include the "field comprehending itself" stage as a natural part of the developmental arc of practice. And, to complicate matters even more, as has been writen about quite a bit, it MIGHT actually be neccessary to depart from vipassana practice (or from whatever you were doing before) to get to that territory for a given individual. But that is not because vipassana doesn't lead there. It just didn't lead there in your case, as for others, it very much did. Whatever works, works. 

And that you can do anything at all when a flip happens... That is THE point that has been described time and time again as THE point of high EQ, regardless of what path. It can take ANYTHING as object. Wich also means, it can happen after giving it your all for ten days on retreat. So, are we really gonna say Ingram going pedal to the metal in that final push was completely unrelated to something then relaxing and suddenly flipping over? That that wasn't clear perception resulting from vipassana practice? 
I think that would be pushing it a bit. Listen to Wystan Bryant Scotts account. Got to where MU was had taken over completely, where it got up at night and walked him to the sitting room and the thing finally flipped. So that did not happen as a result of heavy practice? That wasn't a crucial factor? Again, I think that would be pushing it a bit. Does it happen in entirely different contexts for other people? Yeah. But that is my point exactly. 

My opinion is that there is no one way, as what gets people the final flip seems to vary. But that, by definition, means that heavy practice CANNOT be excluded, and personal anecdotes of practice seem bear this out. Is it the only way? No. Of course not. So I'm just against an overly dogmatic stance on the matter. It can happen as a result of hardcore, intentional, classic insight practice. It can happen as a result of forgetting to practice for a while. It can happen as result of self inquiry. It can happen with refinement of practice of no practice, or just doing metta. Whatever it takes for the, erm, "individual" to get to whole field comprehending two of the three characteristics simulteaneously. Mahasi Sayadaw would probably be quite suprised if you were to tell him that it wasn't vipassana that got him to that point. A zen guy might be equally suprised hearing that it WAS vipassana/clear perception that got him to that point. Do they both seem like they did something very similar nonetheless? Yep, to my mind, they do. How does Shukman describe his final flip? Hearing, seeing, etc. flattening against each other, the self disappearing from amidst them. Sounds like "in the hearing just the heard" etc. to me. 

"The anagami has a simple task. He just has to see it clearly enough to get the flip." Ingram, Hurricane Ranch Dialoges


Edit: To equate heavy practice with "brute forcing it" is one way of reading it, but only one. There are enough accounts of people balancing the factors and still going on long retreat or doing something "extra" (like switching approaches to more jhana, etc.) to get the final flip. Did they all try to brute force their way? I don't think so. That is a very biased reading, in my opinion. Are there enough people actually trying to brute force it? Yeah, I think so. So the bias is understandable. But that is not what I'm talking about.  

Sure thing. What I don't agree with is those people (practitioners and teachers alike) who perpetuate the myth that the process can be engineered. I think we're both saying that, but from different perspectives. (I'm editing this comment after reading your edit of your last comment   ).

It's not uncommon for people to return to "practice, practice, practice" because I did it. I know you read my comments, so you know I'm not ONLY coming down on the side of "it doesn't happen because of heavy practice." I'm not convinced that's common, however.  At the moment this flip happened, I was not in the midst of brute force practice. I had stopped doing that at the suggestion of quite a few people who'd been there, and done that.

Clearly, long-term dedicated practice place us in a condition that's favorable for awakening. But the immediate, proximate cause of that 4th path flip itself is a mystery, at least to me and some others.



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Chris, I just edited my above post to address just this. High dose practice is NOT neccessarily brute force practice. 

Read my previous comment for the edit I made after your edit was made.

And I understand your point. It's all good in my view.

Hi Bruno

Thank you for sharing. I am sharing here my own personal experience in my practice and my experience guiding a small handful of people in their practice. I am sharing it here in case it helps the reader.

I learnt very early on that Insights cannot be 'done'. But Insight practice can and does need  to be done. Then the Insights naturally happen. It takes its own time. That time can be decades, years, weeks, days, or hours. How much time it takes for any individual cannot be predicted.
A very closely associated learning to this for me was - I am not wise, 'my mind' or 'the mind' is also not particularly smart. All the intelligence lies in the Dharma. A set of hypothesis, a set of practice instructions fitting the hypothesis and ultimately confirming the hypothesis.

All 4 path moments that I attained were through very very systematic, structured and hard work. All 4 path moments were attained when that hard work became natural and easy to do, like the mind  dancing a choregraphed dance and taking it to a natural conclusion. But the the chorepgraphy had to be planned, practiced and executed. Sets and Reps all the way.

Generally my advice to people open to the idea is, always have a broad plan, a hypothesis. Always have well designed 'dances' choreographed intelligently around the hypothesis that you teach the mind how to do. And one fine day when you least expect it, the results accrue and the dance ends with a flourish. The lokuttara citta arises and takes nibbana as its object, an ordinary citta subsequently arises and turns back on itself to confirm the path attainment ... and  then you 'know' that done is what was needed to be done!

wow, thank you all for the wealth of responses, this question seems to touch a delicate point around the practices, hey?

I suppose the reason why I call it a koan, rather than a conclusion, is because somehow I am still setting my timer every day and formally devoting some amount of time to practice, I have two retreats planned for the rest of the year, and so on.

But something did change recently about what happens during this practice. It starts with the usual practice I have been doing for four months now, of seeing that this is it, of remembering that there is nothing else and letting that sink in, and it usually does sink in... and then at some point my effort starts feeling counterproductive, contrived, artificial, because really it was all already it before I ever started, so what am I really doing...?

On some level, and this was a really helpful hint by Bahiya Baby, any effort to see something in a particular way carries with it (some sensations that are interpreted as) an attempt at controlling experience. Even if the effort is to see that there is no control or controller, etc... And it seems to produce a nicer outcome when the assumption is questioned that I'm doing anything at all, when that assumption is replaced with the assumption that I am actually already not doing anything, that it is all already just doing itself.

For me this is what feels like quality practice right now, but to call it "practice" makes it seem as if I have much of a say in it. Instead, I feel exposed and at the mercy of whatever is happening... It is reassuring that this theme of uncertainty and unavoidability has been mentioned several times here.

So Kettu, to reply to your question. If I take up the practice of "meeting the inner and outer impressions as they come, whether they appear to be complete, incomplete or something else" (at least the way I would normally interpret that description of a practice which of course could be different than what you meant when writing it)... if I take that up as a practice, it carries with it the intuitively felt interpretation that I can "meet impressions" in some way rather than "meet impressions" in another way, that I should "incline my mind towards meeting impressions in a particular manner". And this contains within it the very drive which I am referring to as "wanting to fix", in this case wanting to fix the way I meet impressions. And a similar thing happens, so far, in any way I approach practice, except in this koan-like stuckness of not knowing what to do, or even assuming it is impossible to do anything at all.

 Pixel,

I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding in your argument regarding both the Three Characteristics and the Four Noble Truths.
The characteristics of impermanence (anicca) and suffering (dukkha) specifically pertain to conditioned phenomena.
No-self (anatta) is universal.
​​​​​​​Nibbāna, being unconditioned, transcends these characteristics.

The Four Noble Truths clearly state:

1. There is suffering (dukkha).
2. Craving (tanhā) is the cause of suffering.
3. There is the cessation (nirodha) of craving, and thus suffering.
4. There is a path leading to this cessation.

It's important to distinguish between different forms of dukkha:

• Dukkha-dukkhatā (ordinary suffering: pain, sickness, aging, death)
• Saṅkhāra-dukkhatā (inherent unsatisfactoriness due to impermanence)
• Upādāna-dukkha (suffering arising specifically from attachment and craving)

In technical discussions about practice, when I refer to "dukkha," I'm usually talking about upādāna-dukkha—the suffering directly linked to craving and attachment, which is precisely what the Dharma aims to end.

You seem to have conflated these distinct meanings of dukkha, suggesting that I somehow believe in a world without physical pain, aging, or death. That's neither fair nor accurate. My logs and posts are consistently clear and explicit about acknowledging the reality of physical suffering (dukkha-dukkhatā).

This isn't the first time you've misrepresented my position by, for example, framing it within broader historical debates ("sutta vs. commentary"), or by doing something like setting up a straw man argument about an idealized, pain-free existence. This rhetorical tactic sidesteps directly engaging with my points about practice.

If you'd like to discuss this further, I'd appreciate direct engagement with my actual position, rather than refuting claims I haven't made. You can say we "speak different languages" but I don't see much evidence that you're actually engaging with what I am saying. 

Which was: Upādāna-dukkha is the tension that appears when the identity system (sakkāya) tightens around experience. That identity system is kept alive by a chronic, craving-driven habit of leveraging attention: craving (taṇhā) inclines the mind to grasp; grasping (upādāna) reinforces both the habit of manipulating attention and the sense of ‘someone’ who must keep manipulating it. And so on...

This isn't Sutta rhetoric. This is me saying dependent origination out loud from the point of view of someone understanding it through practice. 
 

Fantastic replies in this thread! 

Bruno, this came to mind reading through the replies, and then rereading your post.

Maybe you can think of practice this way: knowing that we spend most of our time unintentionally turning ourselves into agents to control some aspect of experience, when we practice, we're intentionally creating an agent that is then exhausted or fully consumed in 'good practice', leaving us back in a place without an agent we were always already in..

It's almost like exposure therapy: consciously reify the agent you keep unconsciously taking yourself to be, until that particular strata of agency is seen through thoroughly enough that your subconscious learns that it isn't real and stops reifying it unintentionally -- in non-practice time.

In that sense, the formal practice is useful, because every moment of life is a moment of 'practice' in the sense that it's been conditioned by a lifetime of habit, and although it can be a useful perspective, it isn't enough to take the conceptual high ground that doing nothing is the highest form of practice as long as the tendency to leverage attention still operates on its own out of habit in day to day life. 

So to recap I see it like this: there's no danger in temporarily reifying an agent in practice, insofar as good practice is aimed at seeing through the layers of that agent. For the vast majority of us, there will still be subtle layers of that leveraging to see through, so resting in them, emphasizing them, seeing them clearly, over and over, is the only way to exhaust and eventually disarm them.

There's a pattern in my practice where I think the mind should be a certain way, take a certain shape. And this insistence is suffering. And when I let go of the insistence, really interesting progress happens. If you don't give your mind freedom, it's never going to be free. So I appreciate your post, and I just felt like adding on: there's a danger that "practice" can prevent someone from letting reality increasingly, gradually, be as it is. And, like pixel said, reality may presently involve executing a technique, or it may not. To get to the point of "the field observing itself," of effortless perception, of non-meditation, it often involves a scary and courageous letting go of our expectations and the mental tension and focusing that we thought we needed for progress.

Pixel, I appreciate your efforts to make people define vipassana as inclusive of no-touch effortless awareness, as with the top of Daniel's vipassana stack. But perhaps some people don't naturally see it that way because, to get there, they felt the need to let go of vipassana as they knew it.



I think this is a good framing, but it's not my favorite one. I think we can frame practice as either about seeing or about relaxing. The latter isn't so popular on here, but it's totally possible for your path to be about the continuous relaxation of tension. Directly relaxing clinging. When there's no more apparent tension to relax, it really does just become about sitting there and letting the unconscious relax itself, until one day there's no clinging left, or so I've heard.

Thanks Bruno. I think i get it now better. 

While not knowing, the whole of the human still is, feeling and sensing. Why wouldn’t i let it? Let it be and do, see and change what it needs in the way it happens. Just my two cents this morning. 

The more life lifes, the more it feels like one massive koan. Try raising a neurotypical child AND a neurodivergent sibling at the same time. The Koan of the correct parenting style. Much cognitive dissonace it creates. Here is an oldie but a goodie koan: The Koan- A Short Story | The Hamilton Project In unison with Bruno, I am very much seeing the planting of flags on a "practice" constantly lose ground.  ​​​​​​​

"Try raising a neurotypical child AND a neurodivergent sibling at the same time. The Koan of the correct parenting style."

Just give them a hug.  A big fat hug Lots of hugs. And often apologise for freaking out when they "misbehave". I often say to mine how stupid of a dad I am as I keep overreacting with them two, and they say "no dad, you are a great dad, we love you, but yes you are stupid sometimes".  

And btw, the "path" is yet another "thing" to dwell on! What is this "dwelling" made of? How does it come to be?